Credit Line:
Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of the Princess Viggo in accordance with the wishes of the Misses Hewitt, 1931

The cherry iconography is pleasing and cheerful. The masterful way the fabrics is joined creates various formations of cherry bunches which is especially effective at the back. This would have been a very expensive textile as the motifs are printed on the warp threads before being woven, which creates a blurry effect. Interestingly this is a fanciful rendition of the cherry branch since cherry trees do not have both blossoms and fruit at the same time.

Jean-Philippe Worth began as an assistant to his father, Charles Frederick Worth, in 1875. Gradually he was allowed to create his own designs and when his father died in 1895, he became the lead designer for the house. He was praised for making elaborate artistic gowns with intricate trimmings on unique textiles, much like his father had before him. Although the House of Worth was still favored by royalty and celebrities through the turn of the century, their styles were no longer the forefront of French fashion after 1900. Around 1910 Jean-Philippe limited his design work to important orders and hired his nephew, Jean-Charles Worth, as the new lead designer before leaving the company entirely after World War I.